We are living in the same city but your face stood in the old pictures dad. Now I just can imagine it. You are very old now. Some telephone calls became sparse and I just can imagine it too. I can imagine your young voice in an old body. That’s all I have about you… You kept away me always. When you went, I was a little baby yet. Then you back, I was happy, so happy, even you and mom weren’t. As if you were prisoners to each other, but okay, I still was happy. I was happy when you promised to take me out. I was happy while I wait for you. I used to sit on the threshold and it used to get dark bit by bit, some friends used to back their homes with holding their father’s hands. I used to go bed in a deep hush and pray: “Please God, may my dad and father don’t divorce, I do everything for it…”
When you were drunk, you used to laugh and talk with me. So I used to love when you had some alcohol. Everything was funny and you were lovely. But the next day, you used to straighten your face again. That seriousness was very confortable to your job too. Who could take a gun with a smiling face, of course you should be serious. National service was a killing art… Then, I suddenly realised that I was living in a country which has an endless war. I just wanted to write a letter to all head of states and tell: “Please sir, don’t sell weaponry to our country, may my father doesn’t die. Please, please sir, don’t sell narcotics, may my friends don’t die, we are children yet. Sell industry, sell educational appliance to my country. We are not happy, don’t make us unhappier. Please…” But my letter stood in a lockbox. You mustn’t bite off more than you can chew.
Well, okay, I didn’t be so unhappy when you left the house, because you were unhappy with us. Then my mother and you got married with some persons. Your choice was a very young woman from your blood and my mother also, chose a man from her blood. Remember, I had visited your new house while I was a teenager. Your wife was just like a friend for me first. Mini skirts, fashion books, cake recipes, evening walks, visits… But before the first visit, she drew me aside and said: “Don’t say ‘dad’ to your father in public.” I said “Why?” She said “I don’t know. It is your father’s desire.” It was too difficult for me. Finally one day I babbled out it and you looked at me with sulk and disappointment till I left there. To look younger as much as your wife was too important for you more than your only child’s broken heart.
Then, I began to fight with world not to fall in to a deepest sorrow. But this world was a monkeys hell and I didn’t know how to handle it. The meaning of love was expectation; the meaning of honour was hubris; the meaning of understanding was expediency. I crumbled to pieces with the first blows. I suffered till my lungs go off. I could die with this but I figured out how to make a deal with God. One night, I watched my ill body from the ceiling, Maybe it was a dream. The ceiling was a big dark hole and I was looking at my lied down body from there. I was fearing deeply while asking a little more life from God. I survived without medicine. I had just God. I hung on to my life. But when ever I gleamed, people tried to put out. I was all alone, they were a lot. My whole life passed with every kind of violence. Plazas pumped my mind, creativeness and intelligence, then spat my sediment out. I was out of all, I didn’t die. I was under noise attacks for years in my home, I didn’t go mad. I lived in some freezing houses for long years. I had gastric bleedings a few times in that freezing houses, I didn’t die. Without friends, without medicine, without justice. I didn’t die. I had just God.
I was cursed and this life was a hell for me anymore. I am marginalized, my all roads are cut, special trained dogs and pretenders were every where. I still tried to gleam. Why a person who is trying to gleam is cursed dad? As if I am living with a spell on me and you knew that. I don’t need to say, isn’t it? Maybe not you; not my dad and mom didn’t start this curse. Nothing will change maybe. Maybe my lonely life will go on like that to the bitter end. But even I have one breath left, I will say: “I want my freedom. I want freedom for me and for everybody.” And the hand of God will be on me. I will sing peace and freedom songs as always. Your little girl is still a rebel as you see. But I don’t sit on the threshold to wait you anymore.
You didn’t deserve this nightmare too. Nobody deserved this chaos, this storm clouds. You can do anything I know. But you must cry dad, you must cry; for yourself, for the world. Forget about me. We are living in the same city dad, if I say something, you will hear. But forget about me. Besides, don’t call me “My daughter” in public. I am a phoenix anymore. But don’t worry about me. I water my rubber plants, cook a little and carry my being to the beyond.
“Everything is dust in the wind…”
Copyrighted by Zeynep Ankara
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